"these recalls do spoil brand value. Lately the reputations of GM's various divisions -- Chevy, Cadillac, Buick, GMC -- have been damaged by the news. The question is how well consumers will remember this fiasco in five years.'

Charles, that's true. That's one of the best advantages of human brain, forgetting the past easily.

Yes, Mydesign, these recalls do spoil brand value. Lately the reputations of GM's various divisions -- Chevy, Cadillac, Buick, GMC -- have been damaged by the news. The question is how well consumers will remember this fiasco in five years.

"It is virtually impossible to test for every possible scenario and at the same time place the product on the market before it is obsolete and within a reasonable price bracket. No matter how careful you are, some things will just slip through. At some point you have to freeze the design and release to production, but there will always remain that decimal point of uncertainty beyond the 99.99%"

Batter, whatever may be the reason, recalling the vehicles from market can spoil the brand value and trust.

Unfortunately, GTOlover, I don't think GM could tell you how long it took to implement a change in the ignition switch fiasco. The story is so convoluted, defined by such a succession of errors, that it's almost impossible to describe. Somehow, GM managed to put an out-of-spec switch in the original product. Then, Delphi Mechatronics changed the design, and GM engineers somehow weren't aware of the change, for reasons having to do with part numbers.

Just saw a news story stating that GM announced 2.4 million more recalls today. GM is trying to get this out all at once, rather than letting it trickle out over time. To some degree, the timing is PR-related.

"If you are aware of potential exposure to litigation and you don't reveal it, that's fraud," he told Bloomberg News. "I'm going to go back to that bankruptcy judge and say, 'You have to undo this, the liability of the old GM, because it was the new GM's continued coverup after the bankruptcy that allowed people to be hurt or killed.' " Hilliard's small firm, Hilliard Muñoz Gonzales, is advertising online for more pre-2009 cases; so are larger plaintiffs' firms such as Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in San Francisco.

I thought the government was supposed to protect people from big companies that pulled this stuff... Not aide and abet.

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